The Linux Thread - The Autist's OS of Choice

[Ferryman]

Fuck me for double posting, but these guys aren't exactly tech illiterates and this is their experience with Arch:

https://youtu.be/NMgruCb5oWE

Primeagean is Reddit/Linux personified. PopOS, gruvbox nvim, soy-sleaze Idubbbz mustache, stinky normie humor, the whole package.

 

[Jimjamflimflam]

It's good. Who's the vendor? Does it expire? Any Linux cert is great for your resume anyway.

Comptia, and as far as I know there's no expiration on it. From the internet chatter I've seen it seems like conptia was considered a bit of a joke but they managed to turn it around.

Just looking at reviews the consensus is that people were expecting this cert to be a cakewalk but it significantly harder then expected.

Was just curious if any farmers have gone down that route.

 

[Nothing Is Written]

Comptia, and as far as I know there's no expiration on it. From the internet chatter I've seen it seems like conptia was considered a bit of a joke but they managed to turn it around.

Just looking at reviews the consensus is that people were expecting this cert to be a cakewalk but it significantly harder then expected.

Was just curious if any farmers have gone down that route.

I know their Sec certs expire (and for good reason), but in any case CompTIA is a solid vendor. There are study guides for the exam on YouTube and torrents. People underestimate the content covered in the exams so it's best to be prepared. Good luck.

 

[jONALD]

I remember thinking at one time I wanted to get a CCNA cert and the first study question made me put off such a venture indefinitely

 

[Betonhaus]

I remember thinking at one time I wanted to get a CCNA cert and the first study question made me put off such a venture indefinitely

Well now I want to know what the question was.

 

[Mikoyan]

I remember thinking at one time I wanted to get a CCNA cert and the first study question made me put off such a venture indefinitely

Sure but what's that got to do with Linux? I mean IOS XR is linux now but...

Also yes, state the question.

 

[jONALD]

Well now I want to know what the question was.

Sure but what's that got to do with Linux? I mean IOS XR is linux now but...

Also yes, state the question.

It was years ago like a year or two post high school graduation so your guess is as good as mine. I do remember it making me feel out of depth because I thought I knew computers but I am no better than a surface level tinkerer.

 

[Ahriman]

And it's running Manjaro.

This is really cool.

 

[prollyanotherlurker]

They never recovered from that and while MacOS has a lot of advantages today you end up with a problem that gaming on a Mac is a joke and backwards software compatibility cannot be reliably expected beyond maybe 1 yearly OS release, after that each year that goes by it's more likely whatever software you have just stops working all of a sudden.

I'm not going to defend mac, because I'm really not a fan of anything apple does. But those are two things I couldn't give less of a fuck about. And I'm probably not alone in that. In this thread I probably am. But in general.

Really, on backwards compatibility. To me it seems like a source of headaches rather than actually being something most people need. People bring it up for windows, and oh this other OS doesn't support this 14 year old binary! I wish linux would be more willing to wipe out cruft. Like the legacy stuff surrounding terminal emulators, that no one has used for years now. And people just have to work around now.

Also. running linux in virtual machines. I really wouldn't base my experience on using it, and how it is right now off of that. At least, when I run a distro in a vm. I run into weird issues that I've never had running it on hardware, or a live environment.

Actually, to people that mention virtual machines, to test linux. Since I've seen it brought up in this thread other than your post. I think that is actually some pretty bad advice. Telling people to test it in a vm. I think using the live environment on a usb is a lot better suggestion. It's a lot more complicated for people to get a virtual machine set up in the first place, even the simple solutions for it. Then they still run like shit, unless you have really good hardware, and can still cause little unexpected problems all over the place. When you can just make a usb, and plug that in, to play around with linux to test it.

 

[Enig]

The legacy-horror as far as Windows is concerned is in its kernel at the moment. It has redundant as well as dependent legacy code that functions as a Frankenstein's monster to keep it running, and no programmer on the planet has either the time, skills, or incentive to maintain the kernel cleanly. Microsoft is very aware of this. There was a DOS-era vulnerability patched only months ago.

It's a good thing the OS isn't open source, it would be like staring into Cthulhu's eyes and going insane.



This is also the selling point of Linux desktop distros (particularly Mint).

If you need a healthy way to remind yourself of how bad Windows really is deep down, remember that up until the 32-bit versions finally got scrapped parts of the source for it had code comments so old they referred to fixing HPFS issues for “NT-OS2”. That kind of nonexistent housekeeping is how you get software that’s like digging out the sunken down ground level of Rome and it’s fucking bizarre.

 

[Plastic Bag]

If you need a healthy way to remind yourself of how bad Windows really is deep down, remember that up until the 32-bit versions finally got scrapped parts of the source for it had code comments so old they referred to fixing HPFS issues for “NT-OS2”. That kind of nonexistent housekeeping is how you get software that’s like digging out the sunken down ground level of Rome and it’s fucking bizarre.

Almost every ransomware attack in history has been on a Windows device for a reason

 

[Retarded Weeb]

Really, on backwards compatibility. To me it seems like a source of headaches rather than actually being something most people need. People bring it up for windows, and oh this other OS doesn't support this 14 year old binary! I wish linux would be more willing to wipe out cruft. Like the legacy stuff surrounding terminal emulators, that no one has used for years now. And people just have to work around now.

Backwards compatibility can seem not worth the effort until you really want to get some old program working and then you're left frustrated to hell. Can't say if Windows is going about implementing it in the best way. I've seen people have more trouble getting old games to work on Windows 10/11 than I do getting them working in Wine/Proton. Perhaps it would be best if people made sure tools or instructions for getting old shit working are easy to find if you need them, while keeping the depreciated elements needed out of core libraries.

 

[Baraka Obama]

Really, on backwards compatibility. To me it seems like a source of headaches rather than actually being something most people need. People bring it up for windows, and oh this other OS doesn't support this 14 year old binary! I wish linux would be more willing to wipe out cruft. Like the legacy stuff surrounding terminal emulators, that no one has used for years now. And people just have to work around now.

I could throw away literally everything else in an OS as long as I can a) do file management competently and fast and b) run any rando application I have saved on my hard drive in perpetuity. I have a directory of exes which I expect to just work forever, and as far as I'm concerned that's the job of an OS to just get out of the way and let me run my thingies.

As a sample, as seen from my mac:


"Oh but how often do you really need to run UMDGen.exe" well it's the only real tool that exists for manipulating files inside a PSP game iso, do I really care how often I run that? If I want to do that, I need to use UMDGen or bust so I want it to continue working forever. It's never going to get updated again. I'd expect it to probably maybe work in Wine or Proton or whatever but many of these tools talk to external devices via USB or in at least one case legacy serial COM ports, those generally break really hard in Wine.

Open source tools don't even really fill in this void as often just getting a build to run on any given repo can be a ton of work, especially if they have external dependencies pulled down via pip or cargo or whatever where you're praying APIs haven't changed or been deprecated.

 

[Slav Power]

Even then, I direct people to VMs, distrosea, live USB booting, and if really curious, dual booting.

Linux troons forget that the average user doesn't know what booting even is, let their own FSH.

View attachment 7386863

That's the biggest mistake all those braindead "Year of the Linux now" cultists do when they try and force all the Win11 complainers to use Linux. The average person doesn't know how to use pre-installed Windows, let alone how to install a different OS. Hell, when you introduce them to the concept that you can just install or reinstall Windows they're shocked and think you're a computer god. And you're expecting them to install a completely different operating system and adjust to it?

Leave your NEET basement/sysadmin bubble for once and take a peek at average people using Windows. They are so tech illiterate they don't even know how to right click the taskbar to disable the Weather widget, and all they can do is complain and act like they're forced to be exposed to it and that they're helpless because their computer is a black box that controls them and not the other way around. You'll be way more productive ragebaiting on /g/ or having another X vs Wayland debate or whatever.

 

[Nothing Is Written]

That's the biggest mistake all those braindead "Year of the Linux now" cultists do when they try and force all the Win11 complainers to use Linux. The average person doesn't know how to use pre-installed Windows, let alone how to install a different OS. Hell, when you introduce them to the concept that you can just install or reinstall Windows they're shocked and think you're a computer god. And you're expecting them to install a completely different operating system and adjust to it?

Leave your NEET basement/sysadmin bubble for once and take a peek at average people using Windows. They are so tech illiterate they don't even know how to right click the taskbar to disable the Weather widget, and all they can do is complain and act like they're forced to be exposed to it and that they're helpless because their computer is a black box that controls them and not the other way around. You'll be way more productive ragebaiting on /g/ or having another X vs Wayland debate or whatever.

Even the archinstall script is completely alien to the average user. Disc formatting? Partitioning? UTC by default? Root user? Sudoer? Packages? DE? WM? Network management? LUKS? Drivers?

It's insane to throw anyone a text based pseudo-script that despite its convenience looks nothing like any traditional GUI OS install process without explaining what any of the poor user is actually choosing out of the myriad of options.

Then there's package management, security hardening, and system management which DOESN'T COME OUT OF THE BOX.

Linux is minimalist because YOU'RE the one who ends up bloating it. Either way, unless you're running a server, you'll end up with hundreds of dot files, configs for things you've tried once and forgotten, and in the end the ecosystem is hostile. With great power comes great responsibility - and the average desktop user is neither.

I've been ricing my Arch distro for two weeks now and I've been working with Debian systems for over a decade. I'm about to reinstall it from scratch because of the amount of reading I've done on the Arch ecosystem. AND THEY'RE BOTH LINUX DISTROS.

My laptop runs Mint and I maintain it easily - I've barely touched anything outside of themes, the shell emulator, and p10k. It works because I work on it and I depend on it. I know I can break it, and it's easy to break it. I've Timeshifted probably twice in five years.

Arch, despite being "just another Linux", is an order of magnitude easier to break and troubleshooting requires reading.

No one with a full-time job who wants an OS to work as a daily driver has the time or willingness to troubleshoot their system for the sake of being exceptional or flying the FOSS flag.

With all that being said, in the hands of an experienced user, yes, Linux really is that good despite what distro you choose. But there simply don't exist that many experienced users.

Companies hire teams to maintain their Debian servers on contract because their in-house teams are Linux illiterates. Just thinking about that makes me thankful for my job security but so much more aware of the unintentional gatekeeping that (understandably so) Windows and Mac users frequently encounter, then run back to their familiar systems.

I want people to come to Linux, it's a good thing. Look what Valve did to launch Arch into the atmosphere as a competent graphics compositor.

This happened with Android as well, but limited in scope.

It's not a matter of if but when Linux becomes a common and major player in the user desktop market share. Two things are holding it back: Linux elitists and the incuriousity of users.

 

[Betonhaus]

Linux is fine for new users, providing that you're around to assist for at least 1-4 weeks whenever they have issues.

 

[Noyciciw]

I thought this would be a perfect video for this thread.

The only thing I can agree with this on is the multiplayer gaming bit; everything else, Linux has worthwhile alternatives to a lotta of the propriety, "esential software," and what not, and there are plenty of beginner friendly distros out there if someone can get the newbie in question, pointed in the right direction.

 

[Nothing Is Written]

Linux is fine for new users, providing that you're around to assist for at least 1-4 weeks whenever they have issues.

That's THE feature of Linux though. It gives the user so much control over their system that inevitably the user will break something. I've done it on Debian servers even after years of maintaining and security hardening corporate data.

Issues are inevitable. Issues are good things - they're informative. Issues tell me who fucked up before I fucked up, who tried to fix it, and how the system WORKS.

Windows users download CCleaner, Malwarebytes, run a Defender scan, and wait for the next OS update and and they're ready to go (usually they are). They sacrifice their agency over their system for convenience.

Windows users aren't users anymore. They're more like guest accounts in a buggy sandboxed OS with restricted privileges and manuals. They've been institutionalised.

 

[Nothing Is Written]

The only thing I can agree with this on is the multiplayer gaming bit; everything else, Linux has worthwhile alternatives to a lotta of the propriety, "esential software," and what not, and there are plenty of beginner friendly distros out there if someone can get the newbie in question, pointed in the right direction.

I thought this was the case until last week. I don't think a beginner friendly Linux distro exists at all. Mint comes the closest, but still needs setting up in case DNS resolution isn't hijacked by NetworkManager. The FHS is completely foreign, and the default firewall is ufw.

 

[Betonhaus]

I thought this was the case until last week. I don't think a beginner friendly Linux distro exists at all. Mint comes the closest, but still needs setting up in case DNS resolution isn't hijacked by NetworkManager. The FHS is completely foreign, and the default firewall is ufw.

DNS resolution just works in my experience, and inexperienced users don't understand folders as it is so you'd be teaching them anyways if you just downgraded them to windows 11. And Linux Mint by default doesn't really have any processes listening for access attempts anyways, unless you're turning on passwordless ssh or some other nonsense.